by G. C. Julien
I used to hate insects, but now, every time I see one, it gives me hope. If they can survive this hellhole, so can we.
“After Fayville, there’s only a few miles left before we reach Area 82.”
“Wish that plane had stopped for us,” Miller breathes.
“You nuts?” Dakota chimes in. “That was a fuckin’ fighter jet! A jet that size needs a runway that’s at least six thousand feet. It isn’t some helicopter. It can’t just hover its way down to us.”
“Well, technically—” I start.
Dakota flicks her wrist at me. “Yeah, yeah,” she says, and although no one else knows what she’s talking about, I do.
VTOLs.
That’s short for vertical takeoff and landing. The first fixed-wing VTOL jet aircraft was called the Short SC. 1. Its first flight was in the 1950 somethings. That’s the extent of the knowledge I learned in training when it comes to aircraft, and it stuck with me. The military guys started calling one of our soldiers, Daniel Stockholm, SC. All because he was the shortest guy in training. Maybe I should call Dakota SC… She’s the shortest one of us all.
“What?” Freyda says with impatience. “Some inside joke you two have?” She lets a sharp breath out through her nostrils and stares at both of us. For days, she’s been quiet, and I bet she’s about ready to rip someone’s head off.
“I like my aircrafts old-school,” Dakota says. “Not the fancy VTOL bullshit. They’re basically drones. They fly themselves. What’s the point of being a pilot if you don’t even have to sit in the damn thing?”
“You’re telling me that plane we saw could have been empty?” Freyda asks. With her hands on her waist and mismatched eyes narrowing on Dakota, she looks a bit more worried than pissed off now.
Dakota shrugs and keeps her mouth sealed shut, though it looks like she’d much rather be yelling at someone. Why does she always look so angry? I swear, when she’s mad—which is always—the freckles on her face pulsate. Then again, that’s likely because she’s breathing so damn hard.
“Yeah, it’s possible,” I say. “Really possible.”
“As in most likely?” Miller asks.
I give her a nod. I hate to admit that what these women thought was human life flying overhead was probably a robot.
Freyda rolls her eyes, so I cut in before everyone gets upset. “Even if it was empty, there would’ve been someone flying it somewhere.”
“Yeah, Gabe’s right,” Dakota says, and I’m not so sure I like the sound of Gabe. She’s talking about me like we’re best buds. “Those things don’t control themselves.”
“You think it’s being controlled from Area 82?” Miller asks. She misses her step and falls against Jada’s shoulder.
“Whoa, you okay?” Jada asks.
“Y-yeah,” Miller stutters. “Need to rest soon.”
A cool breeze sweeps through the grass, making a soft whistling sound, and the sun starts to disappear behind some of Fayville’s buildings. The city isn’t big by any means, but it isn’t small, either. The sooner we cut through it, the sooner we can scout Area 82 before setting camp for the night.
If the sun sets while we’re still crossing, we’re going to have to camp out in Fayville.
I’m about to explain that to Freyda and her women when a nasty sound erupts from a nearby field. At first, it sounds like coyotes fighting over a fresh carcass. The growling is ferocious, monster-like, but it’s the high-pitched yelping that makes me realize something’s wrong. It’s the heart-wrenching sound of an animal being hurt.
Freyda pulls her pistol out of her holster, a motion she’s likely done thousands of times on the job, and darts toward the sound. I instinctively charge with her, my long legs bringing me to the front. I see the jumble of fur before I understand what’s going on.
Foxes?
Coyotes?
But then I catch a glimpse of a face. They’re shepherds, a pack of them, and they’re mauling something alive. Fur and blood shoot up, and the yelping is so pronounced now that it overpowers the growling and barking of its attackers. It sounds like something’s being skinned alive. I’m about to yell something, hoping that my voice will scare them off, when gunfire explodes behind me and the shepherds scatter. They quickly regroup and run toward a small pine-treed forest.
“What is it?” Dakota shouts in a panic.
Everyone runs toward the wounded animal. At first, I think it’s a rabbit. It has a gray coat, but it’s the size of a dog. I take two steps closer and realize it is a dog. It whimpers, its white-patched paws kicking the grass around its body like it’s trying to run away. There’s blood everywhere, making the yellow grass look a filthy brown. I’m scared to get any closer. What if the poor thing’s been torn open?
Freyda raises her gun and points it at its head. It’s like the dog suddenly knows what’s coming. It stops squirming its contorted body and rolls its blue eyes her way.
“What’re you doing?” I snap.
I don’t mean to sound so aggressive, but we don’t even know the extent of this poor thing’s injuries.
“Putting it out of its misery,” she says. “What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Put the gun down,” I growl, my voice a deep rumble.
Dakota pulls her chin back and makes an ugly face—a look that says, Who are you and where’s Gabriel?
I don’t even give her the time to drop the gun. I put my back to it and move toward the dog, my shoulders slouched and my knees bent.
“Hey, hey,” I say, my voice soft.
It whimpers and throws its head back like it’s trying to slither away without the use of its legs.
“Not gonna hurt you, buddy,” I say. But then I realize it doesn’t have a penis. “Sweet girl,” I correct.
I drop onto my knees and inch my way toward her. She’s so scared it breaks my heart. I can imagine exactly what she’s thinking: her life is about to end, and she’s scared out of her mind. All she wants to do is get away from me.
Her white belly is covered in a rusted red color, but there doesn’t seem to be any damage. At least nothing external. No big bites or openings. It looks like they went after her legs. They’re all bloody, and her back right paw looks completely raw. I think I see muscle, but it’s so hard to tell with all of the blood.
“The worst is her back leg,” I say.
“Poor thing,” Dakota says behind me.
“What’re you going to do?” Freyda asks. “Nurse her back to health? For God’s sake, Gabriel, we barely have enough resources for ourselves.”
If I open my mouth to talk, I’ll no doubt come across as an asshole, so I ignore her. Freyda’s only thinking with her head, and I admire her for that. She’s right, we don’t have many resources, and trying to take care of a dog with the bit of food we have seems pretty stupid.
But what am I supposed to do? Kill it? I can’t. It’s an innocent creature.
“It’s okay, sweet girl,” I try. I crawl a bit closer and though she’s still panicking, she isn’t trying to get away as much as she was before. “Not gonna hurt you, okay?” I slowly reach a hand toward her face, full well expecting her to bite me, but I need to let her smell me. I need her to realize I’m not a threat.
Her dry nose touches the tips of my fingers, and then she starts kissing them. Her tongue is warm and soft, and the kissing becomes aggressive. It’s like she’s begging me to not hurt her.
“It’s okay,” I whisper again, and this time, I pet her gently on the head. The yelping becomes more of a sad whimper. It seems to soothe her. Her ears fall flat against the sides of her head and she closes her eyes.
I turn to Freyda with a proud smile on my face, but she doesn’t look impressed. She crosses her arms over her puffed chest and walks the other way, kicking her boots through the tall grass.
“Think you can help her?” Miller asks. She crouches beside me, and when she realizes the dog isn’t reacting, reaches a gentle hand to scratch the back of her neck.
“I ha
ve to try,” I say. “Here, hold this.” I pull my bag off my back and it makes a thump as it lands in the grass.
Miller drags it away from the dog and lets it sit by Jada’s feet.
With my hands, I tear my T-shirt in half and pull it off my chest.
“What’re you doing?” Dakota asks, but it comes out more like an accusation.
I don’t bother saying anything. I wrap my fingers around the dog’s leg, careful not to stress her out, and bandage her wound with my shirt. Instead of biting me, she starts licking my hand over and over again like she knows I’m trying to help her.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
I can feel Freyda’s hateful glare from here. Chances are she thinks I’m wasting everyone’s time.
I’m sure there’s a reason she’s turned out to be so cold, but I’d be willing to bet that before the war happened, she wasn’t like this. I can’t hold it against her.
I scoop the dog up into my arms and she lets out a little cry but still doesn’t try to bite. She seems to be less than a year old.
What happened? Did someone not have enough food to share and decide to leave her behind? Wouldn’t surprise me. It’s happened many times before. In most cases, though, the dogs are dead when I find them. Either that or completely feral.
Jada’s dark face pops up beside me, her lips pulled back into a giant smile.
“Hi, sweetie,” she says.
She looks like she hasn’t seen a dog in years. Maybe she hasn’t.
“Can you hurry up?” Freyda says, a hand on her waist. “What’s the plan, now, Gabriel? Are we stopping here for the night so you can nurse your dog back to health?”
What’s her problem? I’m trying to save an animal’s life and she’s acting like I asked her to walk another three days.
I shake my head, not knowing what to respond. I walk past her with the puppy in my arms. Its fuzzy fur tickles my chest, and the heat of her body calms me. How was I supposed to leave her behind? Her pleading eyes roll up at me, and I can’t help but smile.
She’s such a beautiful dog.
It’s obvious life hasn’t treated her fairly.
Without putting much thought into it, a name pops into my head and comes rolling off my tongue.
“Justice.”
“What?” Dakota asks.
“Her name,” I say, smirking. “Justice.”
Dakota scoffs, but Miller and Jada seem to like it. I look up at Freyda, but she rolls her eyes and starts marching toward Fayville.
A cool breeze brushes against my back, and I hold Justice a little bit closer, the tiny hairs of her head brushing against my chin. She has puppy breath, something that smells a bit like warm kibble, though she isn’t exactly a puppy. Maybe eight months old. I can’t say I dislike the smell; it reminds me of my abuelo’s golden retriever, Tortuga. He named her “turtle” in Spanish because she was unusually slow, even as a puppy. She’d walk her way over to play, even though her entire wavy-haired butt shook from side to side with excitement.
I miss that dog.
I let my chin rest on Justice’s head, and her warmth comforts me.
“Come on,” I say and quicken my pace a bit. Jada and the others follow close by as I catch up to Freyda. We pass by an old saloon some of the military guys once used as a break area during training. They’d brought their own beers and let them sit in a bucket at the back. They were never cold, but cool enough to drink on a hot summer day.
I don’t much like the look of it now. A wooden panel sits overhead of the protruding balcony, and it reads, Sand Storm, a name I never understood. But somehow, it suits it. Most of the roads in this town are all made of sand and pebblestone, and if it weren’t for all the bullet holes and bomb residue throughout, it might have actually been a charming place.
But now, it looks like something out of a haunted western movie. The saloon’s hinged door creaks from side to side as we walk by, and my heart races. What if someone’s inside? What if we’re walking straight into danger? I can’t help but think the same thing for Area 82, but at the same time, if someone is intelligent enough to bring technology back, I doubt they’re going to hunt us down like animals.
Hopefully, they’ll listen.
They have to. It’s our only hope.
“Fuck!” Freyda shouts, and I almost drop Justice to reach for my gun.
But then I see her kicking her boot sideways, trying to fling something off from underneath its sole.
“Goddamn dog shit,” she says.
I’m about to laugh, but I can already tell she’s in a bad mood. So instead, I shut my mouth and keep moving. Behind me, Miller lets out a muffled laugh, but she grunts when someone either punches her or jabs her in the ribs.
I pull Justice even closer to me, holding her body with firm hands, and I start jogging down Fayville’s main road. My anxiety’s setting in, and I don’t want to black out again. I need to feel cool air hitting my face… like I’m moving toward something and not a sitting duck for someone to attack.
Brushing past Freyda, I’m like a giant stomping its way through a crowd of civilians as my heavy boots slap the ground. The others start jogging too, no doubt thinking that hurrying out of here before it gets completely dark is the best option.
I keep expecting to hear a gunshot go off, or someone let out a pained cry. Every time Dakota lets out one of her bubbly, smoker-sounding coughs, I flinch.
I fucking hate this.
Maybe this feeling will go away, eventually.
At last, we break through the end of Fayville and it’s like coming out of a haunted house. A wave of relief washes over me, and I can breathe again.
“Holy shit,” Dakota says, coughing one last time into the elbow of her arm. She pats her oversized cargo vest and stares straight ahead at a sight I’ve come to think of as home, even though I hate everything about it.
The first fence is made of twenty-foot-high chain link and it runs all the way around Area 82. I wouldn’t even know how long it is, and I’d be scared to know how much a job like that cost the government. But that’s only the beginning of it. Behind the fence is a paved road, which is where most federal vehicles used to park. A few of them remain now—black, chrome-trimmed SUVs with twenty-five-inch wheels. They’re beasts, and I remember being mesmerized by them when I first came to Area 82 on the shuttle bus with James.
He’d stared at me wide-eyed, his coiffed orange hair looking yellow with the sun pouring through the bus window, and said something along the lines of, “Holy shit, it’s real.”
That’s what we were all thinking about this place… That it was real.
“Looks locked,” Dakota says, taking a heavy step forward.
I raise a closed fist, not realizing that Dakota doesn’t understand military signals. She keeps walking, so I hiss, “Wait,” in the darkness.
It’s dangerous to walk right up to the gates. Not only that, but it’s too damn dark to see much.
The moon sits up high in the sky, and thousands upon thousands of stars light up the dark space around it. Widespread lighting comes from Area 82’s dome-like building, illuminating the yard around it. It’s artificial lighting, too, which makes the windows look like bright white squares. That also means they have full electricity in there.
The Dome, or the main building, is 8.4 million square feet in size. I have no idea how I remember this, but I do recall being told that it was bigger than something called the West Edmonton Mall. Apparently, that thing sat around 5.3 million square feet before half of it burned down in 2051.
I wonder if the new mall is still up… I wonder if Canada’s okay and if they weren’t affected by our major fuckup.
Staring at the Dome, I remember the time I spent here as a Black Marine, undergoing intense training almost every hour of every day. And the speeches… God, I hated those. Hated how they’d play videos for hours, making us watch some of the most gruesome and horrendous things to get exactly what they wanted… to brainwash us.
The Dome itself is protected by another iron gate that stands twelve feet tall. It seems a bit insane to have so much protection around it when the Dome itself is constructed of heavy metal, cement, and bulletproof glass. But it’s a top-secret military facility, after all. Inside are some of the most dangerous and advanced weapons this world has. It’s no wonder they wanted it to be impenetrable.
The Dome’s front gates sit approximately fifty feet away from the chain-link fence so that only a few vehicles can get in at a time. I guess this was another safety feature of theirs.
Glaring through the darkness, I hope to catch a glimpse of someone walking by a window, but no one passes. There’s no telling how many people are in the Dome. And who knows? Maybe they’re sleeping.
Around the Dome itself, between the chain-link and iron fencing, are several dozen aircrafts sitting still, looking like ancient artifacts. At least to me, because I haven’t seen them in forever (aside from the one that flew right over our heads). But right now, it’s too dark to tell whether they’re filthy or squeaky clean. I’m hoping they’re clean. If they are, that means they’re being used.
I turn around and hand Justice to Miller, who grabs her with a grin on her face. I then take a step toward Area 82 and Freyda follows me.
“No, wait here,” I say.
She scoffs. “What makes you think it’s safe for you to go alone?”
This seems like a dumb question, but I realize she’s trying to protect me. It’s ironic… that’s all I want to do for her.
“Well, if it isn’t safe, I’d rather be alone,” I say.
She seems taken aback by this like she wasn’t expecting me to say something nice.
“Please,” I try again. “Just wait here. We don’t know who’s in there. It could be all men in there, and I’m not putting you in that danger. I need you guys to keep an eye out for me.”
“Guys?” Dakota says. It’s a bit dark to see her features, but from where I’m standing, it looks like she’s scowling at me. “Do I look like a guy—”
Miller smacks her on the arm. “Don’t get started with your feminist bullshit. We’re in the middle of something here that could potentially get us killed, and you’re gonna give Gabriel shit for using the wrong gender terminology? Come on, Dakota. It’s a saying. Grow up. Everyone says guys to generalize a group of people.”